BEACONS
There is one history of the Revolution that has never been written; it
is that of _beacons_. The beacon, in the sense of a signal, was the
night alarm, the night order. The hills on which beacons were set were
those that could be seen from afar, and those who planted these far
angles of communications of light were patriots, like the rest.
There was a beacon at Mt. Hope, R. I. It probably signaled to a beacon
on King’s Rocks, Swansea, which picturesque rocks are near to the
Garrison House at Myles Bridge, and the Swansea church, founded in the
spirit of liberty and learning by the famous John Myles, a learned
exile from Wales, who came to Swansea, Mass., for religious liberty,
bringing his church records from Swansea, Wales, with him. The old
Hessian burying-ground is near the place. Here John Myles founded
education in the spirit of the education of all. He made every house a
schoolhouse by becoming a traveling teacher.
The King’s Rocks beacon communicated with Providence, and Providence
probably with Boston.
In Boston was the beacon of beacons. Beacon Hill now bears its name.
A book might be written in regard to this famous beacon. It stood on
Sentry Hill, a tall mast overlooking city and harbor, not at first with
a globe on the top and an eagle on the globe, as is represented on the
monument. Sentry Hill was the highest of the hills of Trimountain. The
golden dome of the State-house marks the place now.
The first beacon in Boston was erected here in 1635. It was an
odd-looking object.
The general court of Massachusetts thus gave the order for the erection
of the beacon:
“It is ordered that there shall be a beacon set on Sentry Hill, to give
notice to the country of danger.”
The beacon had a peg ladder and a crane, on which was hung an iron pot.
This beacon seems to have remained for nearly one hundred and fifty
years. It was the suggestion of beacons in many places, and these were
the telegraph stations of the Revolutionary War. A history of the
beacons would be a history of the war.
What a signal it made as it blazed in the heavens! What eyes were
turned toward it in the nights of alarm of the Indian wars, and again
in the strenuous times of the expedition against Louisburg, and in
all the years of the great Revolution! A tar-barrel was placed on the
beacon-mast in perilous times, and it flamed in the sky like a comet
when the country was in danger.
Beacon (or Sentry) Hill was almost a mountain then. The owners lowered
it for the sake of gravel for private and public improvements. It
filled hollows and lengthened wharves, and at last the beacon gave
place to the monument of its usefulness.
In New York beacons were set along the highlands whose tops fired the
night sky in times of danger.
These beacons or signals probably suggested the semaphore――a system
of signals with shutters and flags used in France during the wars of
Napoleon.
Governor Trumbull said one day to Dennis: “We must consider the matter
of beacons.”
The two went into the war office to consider.
“I will bring the subject before the Committee,” said the Governor
after they had “considered” the matter for a time, “and you may get
Peter to point out to you the longest lookouts on the high hills. The
sky must be made to speak for the cause in tongues of fire.”
The Tories more and more hated the war Governor.
“I would kill him as I would a rattlesnake,” said one of these.
There were new plots everywhere among Tory people to destroy him and
his great influence.
Peter Nimble, though really a guard on secret service, still herded
sheep and roamed after his flocks and guided them in the pleasant
seasons of pasturage. He went up on the hills of the savins above the
cedar swamps. He knew the hills better than many of the people of
Lebanon.
One day he met the Governor on the green.
“Governor,” he said, “I watch at nights. You know all. I watch for
spies that are looking for the magazines. You know, Governor. I can do
you a greater service than that.”
“Well, boy, you speak well. What can you do?”
“I can think and talk with the skies.”
“That is bravely said, but what do you mean?”
“I can set beacons on the hills. I have studied the hilltops, and how
to look far. I can see how I could flash a signal from one hill to
Plainfield, and to Providence, and to New London.”
“Boy, boy, you see. I can trust you. Have you told Mr. Williams of
this? Shepherd-boy, shepherd-boy, you are one after my own heart. Find
out the way to set beacons. Set signals. How did this knowledge come to
you?”
“My heart is full of my country, when I am among the flocks on the
hills.”
“You are like another David. Talk with Dennis about these things.”
“Governor?”
“Well, my shepherd-boy?”
“One day, it may be, I will see something.”
The Governor went to his war office. People were coming from four
different ways, all to consult with the Governor: horsemen, men in
gigs, men from the ships, people with provisions, all with something
special to say to the Governor.
The Governor met William Williams, “the signer,” at the door of the war
office.
“That is a bright boy that you keep to herd sheep,” said he.
“Peter?”
“Yes. He has just said something to me that I think remarkable.
Give him freedom to do much as he pleases. He is carrying out secret
instructions of mine.”
Peter studied hilltops, and told Dennis of all the curious angles that
he discerned on the far and near hills. He set beacons and found out
how he could communicate with Plainfield, Providence, and Groton.
In the meantime he watched in the midnight hours at an angle in the
turnpike road behind the curious window. He knew that the magazine was
near; he did not seek to learn where. While the young patriot’s mind
was employed in these things there came to him one night a very strange
adventure, which led him to see to how great peril the Governor’s
person was exposed.
Peter thought much of his aged uncle, the wood-chopper, who had said to
him, “Out you go!” The boy had a forgiving heart. “He did it on account
of his love for the King, and he thinks that a king is appointed by
God,” he would say to the Governor. “Do not disturb him.”
The Governor would not disturb him. He, too, had a forgiving heart.
Peter’s heart was true to the old man. He sometimes wondered as to
where would fall the old man’s gold at last――to the King, or him.
But he had no selfish schemes in the matter――for him to do right was
to live. In his midnight watches, and with his most curious means of
communication with the alarm-post in the cedars, he held one purpose
uppermost: it was, to protect from harm the unselfish Governor who had
spoken so kindly to him when his heart was hungry, and whom all the
people loved.
The Governor still went about with apparent unconcern; he would talk
here and there with those who detained him and needed him, now at
the tavern, now upon the village green. But the people all knew that
dangerous people were coming and going to and from the green-walled
town.
Peter saw something suspicious in the conduct of several sailors who
visited the place from the ports, and who called the inland province
the Connecticut main.
“I would sooner die myself,” he said to Dennis, “than to see any harm
befall the Governor. ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man
lay down his life for his friends.’” He had learned to quote Scripture
from the Governor.
One night as he was watching with his window at the elbow of the
turnpike, he was surprised to hear a soft, slow, cautious footfall, and
to see a curious stranger in a blanket approaching in the dim light. He
turned up the hill behind the window and light to see if the man in the
blanket would follow him.
The man in the blanket turned when Peter set down the window, and went
down the hill as from a house to meet the traveler.
Peter stopped the stranger, whom he saw to be dark and tall, and who
held under his blanket some weapon which seemed to be a hatchet.
“Do you live in yonder house?” the man asked.
“No,” said the boy, “that is not my house. Whom are you seeking?”
“Does an old man live there?” asked the stranger. “An old man who used
to live with a boy――his brother’s boy?”
“No, no,” answered Peter in much surprise.
“Do you know of any old man that lives all alone? They say that the boy
has left him.”
“I have in mind such an old man, stranger.”
“What became of the boy?”
“He tends sheep during the days.”
“Can you direct me to the place where the old man lives?”
“What would you have of him?”
“I would have him help me. I need help.”
“Did you ever meet him?”
“No.”
“How did you hear of him?”
“I am partly an Indian. The scholars of the Indian school that were
once here used to meet him on the road in front of his woodpile. They
heard that he had concealed money. Indian need heap money. Indian must
have help.”
The last sentence showed that the Indian spoke true in regard to his
nationality.
A suspicion flashed across Peter’s mind; this stray Indian was out in
the forest at this time with no honest purpose.
He simply said: “Follow me.”
He led the Indian to the alarm-post. The Indian thought that he was
going to the wood-chopper’s cabin. Dennis received the night wanderer
and detained him.
“I must go and alarm my uncle,” said Peter to Dennis, privately.
He hurried away toward the old wood-chopper’s cabin.
He beat on the door, and cried:
“Lift the latch!”
There was a noise within, and presently the latch was lifted.
“You, boy? You? What brings you here at this time of night?”
“To warn you of danger. There has been a man in the cedar swamp who is
seeking you, and he has no honest purpose in his heart, as I could see.
He is a half-breed. He says that you have money concealed.”
The old man’s face took on a look of terror.
He began to dance around.
“Who――ah――says that I have money concealed?” he said, lighting a
candle――“who――who――who?” He lit another light.
“Boy, you are not deceiving me? You never deceived anybody. And what
a heart you must have to come here to protect an old man like me, who
said to you, ‘Out you go!’ And you have held no hardness against me――I
have cursed you――because you have turned against the King. Come in――sit
down――I am afraid. You don’t think that the Indian meant to rob me, do
you?”
“I think he intended to find you in the night and beg money, and if you
refused him to demand money, and if you refused him, then to find out
where you hid money. If I had not turned him aside, I don’t believe
that you would have been living in the morning. Bad Indians murder
lone men by lonely ways. There was crime in his eye.”
“Boy, let me bar the door. I know your heart. You had a mother who had
a true heart, and a boy’s heart is his mother’s heart. You only come
here for a good purpose. I know that. And you have come in to-night to
protect me, who turned you out.
“Boy, I have money. I am willing to tell you now where it is!”
“But, uncle, I am not seeking your money――I do not wish to know where
it is.”
“But you must――you must; you are the only friend that I have on earth.
What made me say, ‘Out you go!’ when I needed you?
“The money――if ever I should die, do you come back here and take all
I leave, and wash and wash and wash until you find the bottom of the
soap-barrel. There, I haven’t told you anything. People don’t hide
money in the soap-barrel――no, no; lye eats――no, no. You know enough
now. Will you stay with me until morning?”
“No; I have come to take you to the war office, for protection――to the
store. One room there is almost always open.”
“To the Governor’s! He suspects me of being a Tory. What would the
King say, if he were to know that I went to the rebel Governor for
protection? No, no, no, no. Let the Indians kill me――I will die true to
my king. You may go――you will not betray me.”
“I can not leave you until morning, and then I will see that you are
guarded.”
“Who will guard me?”
“The Governor will see that you are kept from harm.”
“No, no, no. Go, Peter, go――out into the night. I want the King to know
that he has one heart that is true to him in the land of the cedars.
Go! I will bolt my door nights――and will chop wood. That is what I tell
people who come to visit me――I chop wood――and I will say no more.
“You would die for the Governor, and I am willing to suffer any danger
for my king――for King George of Hanover. Go!”
Peter went out into the night. There was something in his grim uncle’s
loyalty that kindled his admiration, and there was a touch in the old
man’s desire that he should possess his property that really awakened
a chord of love in his heart. He resolved that he would be as true to
the old man as ever his duties to the cause would allow, although the
rugged Tory had said to him a second time, “Out you go!” The heart
knows its own.
Peter could ride like the wind. So the people said “that he streaked it
through the air.” With his night service, and his placing of beacons on
the hills, and his place at the door of the war office in the store,
which he yet sometimes filled, and the spirit that he had shown toward
his unhappy old uncle, the wood-chopper, he was making for himself a
personality.
The Governor entrusted him with a message to the army at Valley Forge.
The Governor’s wife was a noble woman, as we have seen. She was true
to her own. Her family were very tender-hearted and affectionate. Her
daughter Faith, who could paint and who had inspired her brother, the
great historic painter, in his boyhood, died of insanity after hearing
the thunders of Bunker Hill. She had married Colonel Huntington, who
went to the camps around Boston. She hoped to meet him there, but
arrived just as the battle of Bunker Hill was rending the air.
When she thought of what war might mean to her father, her husband, and
her brother, who was an officer, her mind could not withstand the dark
vision that arose before her, and it went out. She died at Dedham. One
of her brothers, too, had so much of the human and elemental nature as
to have become greatly depressed by disappointment. The Trumbulls were
a marvelous family, with a divine spark in them all, but not all the
children had the rugged nerve of their father.
The wife of Governor Trumbull guarded her family when the Governor was
absent on official duties at Hartford.
The family now were like so many listeners――to get tidings from the
war was their life, and anxiety filled their faces as messengers
from Boston, Providence, New London, and Hartford, and the great
powder-mills and ordnance works of hidden Salisbury came to them.
One evening, when the Governor was away, a messenger came to the green,
and stopped before the tavern. It was dark and rainy.
“It is the shepherd-boy!” said Faith Trumbull, standing in the door,
with a lantern in her hand. “He has returned from Valley Forge. I
almost shut my heart against the news. His face is white.”
The boy came to the house and Madam Trumbull received him by laying her
hand on his shoulders.
Dennis came running in.
“You, my boy Nimble? You made a quick journey.”
The family sat down by the broad, open fire. Their anxiety was shown by
their silence.
“Well,” said madam, “the time has come to speak. What news?”
“Oh, could you see,” said the shepherd-boy, “shoeless men, foodless
men――snow and blood. When the men move, the snow lies red behind them.
Oh, it makes my heart sick to tell it. I would think that the stars
would look down in pity.”
“Dennis,” said madam, “call the women of the Relief Committee here
to-night, all of them――now.”
“Let us hear what more the boy has to say.”
“No; suffering has no right to be delayed one moment of relief. Go now.”
Dennis went out into the night. He returned with the women, who began
to knit stockings for the barefoot soldiers of Valley Forge.
Madam addressed the women.
“I belong to the Pilgrim Colony,” said she, “but of that I would not
boast. Hear the rain, hear the sleet, and the wind rising! You have met
here in the rain. The fire burns warm.
“Let me tell you my thoughts――something that comes to me. It was such
a night as this when John Howland with a band of Pilgrims sailed in the
deep darkness, near the coast, on the shallop of the Mayflower, and he
knew not where he was.”
“What did he do?” asked one of the knitters.
“He sang in the storm. Darkness covered him――there was ice on the oars
as they lifted and fell. There was no light on the coast. The wind rose
and the seas were pitiless, but he sang――John Howland.”
“What did he sing?”
“That I can not tell. I think that he sang the Psalm that we sing to
the words
‘God is the refuge of his saints,
Though storms of sharp distress invade.’
Let us sing that now. The storm that tossed the shallop of the
Mayflower broke; the clouds lifted. So it will be at Valley Forge. Knit
and sing.”
And the knitters sang. The storm rose to a gale. Shutters banged, and
there was only the tavern lights to be seen across the black green.
Suddenly a strange thing happened.
Peter opened the door, hat in hand.
“Madam Trumbull,” said he, “may I speak to you?”
“Yes, Peter, boy; what have you to say?”
“I saw a strange man at Valley Forge. He was young――a Frenchman.
“One cold night he was standing near Washington in the marquee, and
Washington, the great Washington, put his own cloak about him, and the
two stood under the same cloak, and some officers gathered around him.
And I heard him say, the young Frenchman: ‘When you shall hear the
_bugles of Auvergne_, the cause of liberty will have won the battle of
the world.’ What did he mean?”
“I do not know,” said Madam Robinson; “it seems like a prophecy; like
John Howland, the pilgrim, singing in the night-storm on the shallop of
the Mayflower. The bugles of Auvergne!――the words seem to ring in my
ears. What was the young Frenchman’s name?”
“Lafayette.”
The next day Peter went to Dennis and related the same story, and said:
“America will be free when she shall hear the bugles of Auvergne.”
“So she will; I feel it in my soul she will――the bugles of Auvergne!
That sounds like a silver trumpet from the skies. But where are the
bugles of Auvergne?”
“I do not know, but we will hear them――Lafayette said so.”
“But who is that same Lafayette?”